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Next week on July 21-24, the 47th Annual Comic Con International will take place at the San Diego Convention Center. This year will play host to an impressive line-up of films, both new and old. The festival features a series of discussions, forums, and film showings. This year’s special guests include Stan Lee, Christopher James Priest, J. Michael Straczynski, G. Willow Wilson, Jason Aaron, Michael Barrier, and Allen Bellman. Some of this year’s movie highlights include Labyrinth (1986), Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940), Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979), Battlestar Galactica (1978), Highlander (1986), Flash Gordon (1980), Batman the Movie (1966), Top Gun (1986), Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986), Deadpool (2016), and The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). Click here to see the full schedule at the Comic Con 2016 website.

With Daniel Craig (Layer Cake, Quantum of Solace) sadly stepping down from the role, speculation continues to circle the web as to who is going to replace him as the world’s most famous spy. Although MGM had reportedly offered Craig £68 million for a further two films, plus shares, inside reports have stated that Craig is simply done with the role, and is moving on. And so now must producers Barbara Broccoli (GoldenEye, The World is Not Enough) and Michael G. Wilson (For Your Eyes Only, License to Kill), along with the heads at MGM, decide on a new actor to further the franchise. The favored choice, at least according to all the rumors, is Avengers and High-Rise actor Tom Hiddleston, who has thus far denied all of the rumors, but who, I’m sure, is not completely against the idea. Another name that has come up is Aiden Turner (The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Poldark), but according to a more recent report from the Daily Mail, Billy Eliot and Nymphomaniac star Jamie Bell is in actual talks with the producers to take over the role. Continue reading →

It’s official: there’s a new Power Rangers big-screen adaptation coming to theaters in 2017, and pre-production is already well underway. So much so, in fact, that a director and some initial cast spots have already been filled. Leading the new movie is Project Almanac director Dean Israelite, who will work from a script by screenwriting partners Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz (Thor, X-Men: First Class). Actress Elizabeth Banks (The Hunger Games, Zack and Miri Make a Porno) has just been cast in the role of villain Rita Repulsa, who will face-off with the Power Rangers, comprising of actors Naomi Scott (The 33, The Martian) as the Pink Ranger, Kimberly, RJ Cyler (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Second Chances) as the Blue Ranger, Billy, Becky G. (House of Sin, Empire) as the Yellow Ranger, Trini, Darce Montgomery (A Few Less Men) as Red Ranger, Jason, and Ludi Lin (The Intruders, Monster Hunt) as the Black Ranger, Zack. No word yet on whether or not old Zed will appear alongside Rita, or who will star as Zordon or the robot Alpha, but seeing as it’s been a long time since we’ve seen the Power Rangers in theaters, we can expect this is one remake people might actually want to see happen. Stay tuned for more updates.

The 73rd annual Golden Globe Awards were held last night, and it produced a finals list that was definitely deserving, and in some cases very surprising, particularly Sylvester Stallone winning the Best Supporting Actor award for his Oscar-nominated role of Rocky Balboa. Here are the winners for all of the film categories:

Best Picture-Drama: The Revenant
Best Actress-Drama: Brie Larson – The Room
Best Actor-Drama: Leonardo DiCaprio – The Revenant

Finally after months of anticipation and sitting through rounds of film festivals around the globe, Oscar-winner Steven Spielberg‘s (Jaws, Saving Private Ryan) new Cold-War drama Bridge of Spies is opening on big screens across the country this week. Starring Spielberg-regular Tom Hanks (Catch Me If You Can, Forrest Gump) in the lead role, the film focuses on James B. Donovan, an attorney who was sent to Soviet Russia by the CIA in order to negotiate the release of suspected U-2 Spy Plane pilot Francis G. Powers. The script was originally penned by screenwriter Matt Charman, but was then re-worked by Oscar-winning filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen (Oh Brother Where Art Thou?, No Country For Old Men) before Spielberg began the process of principle photography. Also starring in the film are actors Mark Rylance (The Other Boleyn Girl, Anonymous), Domenick Lombardozzi (Phone Booth, The Wire), Victor Verhaeghe (August Rush, The Wolf of Wall Street), Alan Alda (MASH, The Aviator), and Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone, Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), with Austin Stowell (Behind the Candelabra, Whiplash) starring as Powell. This will be Spielberg’s first directorial project since 2012’s Lincoln, which earned the director two Oscar-nods for Best Director and Best Picture. Look for Bridge of Spies in theaters this Friday. The trailer is available here on MADE.

Tony-winning actor Mark Rylance (The Other Boleyn Girl, Blitz) is currently in talks to take a role in director Steven Spielberg’s next film project, a Cold War thriller that follows the real-life story of attorney James Donovan. Donovan is best known for negotiating the release of Gary Powers, a U-2 plane pilot who was imprisoned after being interrogated for espionage by the KGB. Rylance was up for the role of the Mad Hatter’s father in the upcoming sequel to Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, but he has since moved on from that project, which will once again feature Johnny Depp as the Hatter. Spielberg’s new film, which has yet to be titled, will also feature Oscar-winner Tom Hanks (Forrest Gump, Captain Phillips) in the role of Donovan, and will be his fourth collaboration with the director Spielberg. The film is expected to begin production this fall, but is currently still awaiting a script re-write from writers/directors Joel and Ethan Coen (Oh Brother Where Art Thou, True Grit), so we’ll have to wait to hear more information on this as the details emerge. Stay tuned!

In 2009, writer Jeanne Marie Laskas published an article in GQ Magazine entitled Game Brain, which followed the story of neuropathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu and his discovery of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy and his exposure of the condition to the general public. Now director/producer Ridley Scott is working on a new film based on that article with Peter Landesman (Parkland) set to write and direct the project at Sony Pictures. Now, according to Variety, producer Scott may have his lead actor already in place with Will Smith, who is expected to take the part of Omalu. Few details are known about the specific plot at this point and there is no time table for a release, but with a director and lead already in place we may see this one sooner than we think.

Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli have been attached to one of the most successful spy film franchises for the last 20+ years. I’m talking, of course, about the 50-year running James Bond franchise, which first began with Broccoli’s father, Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman in 1962 with the first Bond adventure, Dr. No. Now the two spy-film writers/producers are venturing into the realm of real-life spy controversy with a new biopic about Edward Snowden, formerly of the CIA and NSA, who is now in exile in Russia for leaking classified information to the press regarding the spy agencies’ questionable tactics behind their information-collecting policies. The film will be adapted from a new book, No Place To Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State, by The Guardian writer Glenn Greenwald, who first reported on Snowden’s espionage and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. Sony Pictures is currently developing the project with the James Bond producers at the helm, but with Bond 24 and 25 already in early pre-production with director Sam Mendes, it might be a while before we see this one really get up and running.

Warner Bros. is currently trying to get a new King Arthur project off the ground, and now may have Guy Ritchie behind the camera. The director’s last big screen project was Sherlock Holmes and its sequel, A Game of Shadows, with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. He is currently wrapping up production on The Man From “U.N.C.L.E.” with actors Henry Cavill (Man of Steel) and Armie Hammer (The Lone Ranger). The movie follows a CIA agent who teams up with a KGB operative to stop a mysterious organization from mass developing nuclear weapons in the 1960s Cold War era. Ritchie had an Arthur project in the works with Warner Bros. back in 2010, but the project never made it into full production. The studio also decided to drop a remake of Excalibur, a film by director John Boorman which was released in 1981, as well as another project by David Dobkin (Wedding Crashers). The new project with Ritchie may be the first in a series of six films, although there are no reports confirming this information. The last Arthur project that hit Hollywood was King Arthur (2004) with Clive Owen and Keira Knightley which was distributed by Touchstone Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer. The new film is being produced by Akiva Goldsman and Lionel Wigram and will be written by Joby Harold. We’ll look for news of a first draft, if the project does ever make it off the ground.

The master, Carnage (The Executioner) will be live in Sioux Falls tonight. He’ll be joined by Johnny G and Bash Wise among others at Billy Frog’s. Carnage is pretty much a one man band, we’ve seen him live quite a few times and he never disappoints. The show is 21+ and FREE, so if you’re in Sioux Falls searching for a good time; this is it.